Opinion: That’s JUDGE Jim Hahn to you

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Former Los Angeles Mayor Jim Hahn was appointed to the Los Angeles Superior Court today. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger made Hahn one of 17 new judges in the L.A. court, by far the state’s largest court.

That makes Hahn’s public resume even longer -- he was a deputy city attorney, city controller, city attorney, and mayor (after beating Antonio Villaraigosa in the 2001 city election). Villaraigosa came back and defeated Hahn in 2005. While mayor, Hahn helped head off secession of the San Fernando Valley, engineered the denial of a second term to L.A. Police Chief Bernard Parks, appointed William Bratton to replace Parks, led an effort to end state grabs of city funds -- and became embroiled in what became known as a pay-to-play scandal focused on awards of city contracts to donors to the anti-secession campaign and to his mayoral campaign. Hahn was never charged with any wrongdoing, although some of his donors were penalized for campaign money laundering.